


you're here you're near you're there and then

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, IT JUST STARTS THERE, LOOK IT'S NOT REALLY A COFFEE SHOP AU, M/M, also what the hell is a realism or is writing, there are more characters but barely and im lazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:24:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5481608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John really shouldn't agree to consider becoming roommates with some random kid Mulligan met on Twitter, but he's desperate, okay?</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're here you're near you're there and then

**Author's Note:**

> i... am not satisfied with this but i am posting it anyways because i might as well admit my hamilton-garbage-self's presence on here too.  
> anyways. sorry for this, y'all.
> 
> title from oh, maker by janelle monáe.

It usually goes like this: John wakes up, gets dressed, grabs himself a granola bar, if he’s hungry, ignores any messages on his phone from his family, responds to the ever-present texts from Laf or Mulligan, and, maybe once a month, from Aaron. He starts walking and tries to ignore the cold, because it is always cold, this time of year. He arrives at work three minutes late, which Angie will point out but make no effort to punish him for. Then he makes coffee for people, ends his shift, goes home, checks his email, and he writes. And then erases fifty percent of what he has written. He might go out with Angie or Laf or Mulligan, who will presumably drag along Eliza, Peggy, or Aaron, and that will be alright, he supposes every time, and he is usually right.

Today it goes like this: John wakes up to four missed calls, one voicemail, from his sister and one message from a number he doesn’t know that says “Hercules said you were looking for a roommate, and considering I’m a friend of his, I feel …”, none of which are the most appealing things to wake up to. His sister’s voicemail is just asking him whether he’s coming home for the holidays, because it can’t be _that_ bad, which is untrue, and that she really misses him. He writes on a post-it, which he will inevitably forget about, to call her back. 

The message from Mulligan’s friend is longer than any text message should be, clocking in about 500 words. It’s from some guy named Alex, who just moved to the city, a law student, twenty-one years old, who desperately needs a place to live. He has a job, he says, and is totally okay with just sleeping on the couch or on the floor or anywhere, really. John is, at first, mildly pissed off at Mulligan for advertising his roommate crisis to random people John has never met, but still responds to Alex, saying to meet him at the shop after his shift ends, because why the hell not. It’s not as weird as Angie’s suggestion of “CRAIGSLIST” in all-caps in their group chat, and upon calling Mulligan, he definitely does know this guy, who is, quote “a fuckin’ riot.”

 

—

 

Work is boring, simply because it’s always so routine. John usually people watches to keep himself the slightest bit entertained— today, he’s watching some kid, kinda cute, in the corner, wearing an oversized sweater and with his long hair tied back into a ponytail, angrily typing something— angrily typing, that’s not something John sees everyday— into a Google doc. He arrived about five hours into John’s shift, and ordered the cheapest drink they have, only to down it immediately. He stays for far too long afterwards, to the point where John has to say, and he always hates saying this, “Man, if you’re not gonna get anything else, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.”  
The kid says “Oh, yeah, um, sure, I’ll have what I ordered earlier, see, I’m meeting someone after their shift and—“  
Oh.

“You Alex?”  
“Yeah, Alexander Hamilton, at your service, I assume you’re John Laurens, then?”  
John gestures at his name tag. Alex laughs nervously.  
“Pleasure to meet you,” continues Alex, and then “I really hope that our conversation works out later.”  
“Shift ends in twenty. See you then,” John says, because Angie is signaling for him to finish strong, with a hand gesture that she always does around this time of day.

She asks him who the cute kid is, and he says “Friend of Mulligan’s, you wanna bring this to him?” blandly, handing her Alex’s drink. “He needs to pay, too.”

 

—

 

“You showed up three hours early.”  
“I needed wi-fi anyways, so I just thought it would be more efficient to be in the place where I had to go later, anyways,” everything Alexander Hamilton says sounds incomplete, like he’s got a lot more to say than he already is saying.  
“How d’you know Mulligan?”  
“Just coincidence actually! We’d talked on Twitter, a little bit, before I got here, so when I said I was moving here for school, he, uh, reached out and I’ve lived on his couch for the past two months, but I feel bad, see, because I was, uh, intruding upon his space.”  
“And he’s never mentioned you until I called him about your message today _because_ ?”  
“Fuck if I know,” Alex bounces in his chair as they speak. Aaron, whose shift has started, eyes them not-suspiciously, but not exactly in a friendly way either.   
“Where you work?”  
“I write freelance and I just got hired as a social media intern for Senator Schuyler—“  
“That’s Angie’s dad,” says John, quickly. “The other barista. Her dad’s nice, I think? I’ve met him, like, once?”

Alex nods. Angie’s right that he’s cute, but John doesn’t have time for that right now. He asks a few more questions, only to get increasingly wordy answers, but nothing that gives John a bad feeling. He wants to work in politics, he’s from the Caribbean, he’s allergic to peanuts, normal, human stuff.

It seems like he’ll work out. 

 

—

 

Two weeks into living with Alex, and John is already regretting this choice. Not because of Alex, but because he, John Laurens, is worrying too much about Alex, who never fucking sleeps, like, ever, and always forgets to eat, and is probably suffering from carpal tunnel times a million. And who has engaged in approximately thirty-nine twitter wars, which he yells about to John near constantly.

But it’s nice to have someone else paying the rent and having someone to edit his writing for him (and someone to edit for), and someone to just talk to. So Alex stays, and becomes increasingly cuter as each goddamned day passes, which is not anywhere close to fair to John, but those _eyes._ He could drown in them, so dark, so intelligent, so, so, so. John stutters when Alex looks at him, every time. It’s embarrassing. Incredibly so.

And then Laf invites John out, says to bring “the new guy.” Everyone should meet him, they say.

This is, in short, enough of a motivation for John to go out, and even more to convince Alexander Hamilton to stop working for once in his unnecessarily high-stress life.

“Man, you gotta come out. Gonna be wild. And Mulligan’ll be there. And your good ol’ boss’ daughters.”  
“I have homework—“  
“You’re three weeks ahead, I checked your syllabuses. Syllabi?”  
“Both work, I think, and still, I need to-“  
“You need to have some fun. Meet people. I swear, Alex.”

 

—

 

Drunk Alex is a whole other kind of trip— very social, very provocative in any given sense of the word. He picks fights with Aaron over anything Aaron says, even what they agree on, flirts with Eliza, Angelica, and, Laf points out, John, but John assumes that it’s just friendliness, there. Now, John understands the “fuckin’ riot” description, at least.

Drunk Alex also happens to be fascinated by John’s freckles, and he gets 18 texts over the course of the night, near flawless in grammar and spelling, pointing this out, despite the fact that Alex is never more than five yards away from him. Laf, of course, takes this as another point to their “Alex Is Flirting With You, Asshole” theory. Mulligan takes it as the funniest shit he’s ever heard in his life.

And John’s not sure which of them to side with. Which is when Drunk John takes over, and flirts back. A few too many “heys” are exchanged, and John doesn’t remember what happens next until it’s already happened.

 

—

 

This is how John ends up making out with his roommate of two and a half weeks (who tastes like shitty beer and chapstick, which, in any other situation, would be completely a turn-off, but it isn’t now, it isn’t here,) in front of seventy-five percent of the people he’s well-acquainted with. 

 

—

 

It’s an awkward subject to address, and it’s more awkward because of Hercules Motherfucking Mulligan and Angelica Motherfucking Schuyler’s incessant talk about it, which mostly includes “daaaamn,” (the amount of a’s changes each time it’s said,) and “omg”. 

Alexander seems fine about it, like nothing has changed, which, it definitely has. It’s Sunday, so no work, no school, no anything, just the two of them, hungover, with John staring nervously across the table while Alex pours milk into his cereal.

“So about my paper on the-“  
“We kissed.”  
“Yep, you’re really good at it, if you wanna continue this, I am one-hundred percent game,” Alex is entirely unfazed, by some sort of a miracle.  
“Um,” says John.  
“If you don’t that’s, uh, that’s okay too, I totally understand if you’re not interested or whatever, that’s cool too, and-“  
“No, no, no, I really, uh, shit.”  
“Shit what?”  
“I don’t know what I’m gonna say, fuck. But yeah, let’s um. Keep up that kissing thing.”

Alex beams at him. 

 

—

 

The two of them decide, almost immediately, that Hercules Mulligan will not get the satisfaction to know that he was their fucking matchmaker. They try and keep their As Of Now Untitled Fling under wraps, and succeed for about three days, when Alex mentions that both of them are busy in the group chat, which leads to Angie interrogating, and John reluctantly confessing, and three snapchats from Eliza of her making a face near identical to the surprised emoji.

 

—

 

It usually goes like this: Alex wakes up an hour before John, kisses his forehead, makes a pot of coffee, and writes and writes and writes. John will wake up an hour later, get dressed, and make a new pot of coffee, because Alex has either finished his or let it go cold. John goes to work, makes coffee for people, and ignores his boyfriend’s obnoxious (and adorable) texts. He goes home, feeds Banquo, their turtle, and he writes, and has Alex edit for him. 

It’s alright, he knows.

 

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr @oceanicairline or on twitter @farmerefuted to see me sinning and regretting even more


End file.
